Day 8 of the đľ 13 Days of Recommended Holiday Reality TV â¨
8. Small Town Security
The holiday magic
AMC said âş âThe staff of JJK Security in Ringgold, GA, is made up of some of the most unusualâand unusually entertainingâfolks you'll ever meetâ
why I recommend it âş quirky co-workers who love themselves and each other
where to watch âş
free: Tubi ⢠The Roku Channel ⢠Pluto
subscription: AMC+
Why you should watch
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I was hoping to recommend Tirdy Works to youâjust an amazing show following a woman in Maine who makes stuff out of moose poop. (Watch a clip in my review.)
Alas, itâs only available to buy from Amazon or YouTube/Google, which seemed like the opposite of the ethos of the dayâthough Small Business Saturday was created by American Express, dammit!
đĄ If you want to support a small business, reality blurred needs your help now more than ever! đ
Thankfully, Tirdy Worksâ spiritual predecessor, Small Town Security, is available to stream free.
It follows the staff at a family-owned security company who do work like serving papers to people or providing private security for events.
The show focuses less on that than it does on the people, but they are charming and funny and quirkyâand just fun to hang around.
When I originally included Small Town Security in my best-of 2012 list, I called it âa quiet docudramaâ with characters âwho were so awkward and stiff in front of the cameras it was like nothing Iâd ever seen on television.â
But there was a caveat: âit kept me at armâs length because of the overly choreographed episodes.â You can feel the producing of the episodes, the This is the plan for this episode. This isnât The Real Housewives, but it feels similarly constructed.
The reason the show still works, though, is because of its characters. That they are not actors is so obvious, and makes things even funnier and more charming when theyâre clearly being silly.
If you doubt its veracity, the company still exists, though the showâs star, âThe Chiefâ Joan Koplan, died in 2016.
The show still lives on, as does what Joan and her colleagues and family members shared with us.
⨠13 Days of Holiday Reality TV â¨
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